Whew! Just made this Daring Bakers Challenge! I made the chocolate eclairs yesterday afternoon as a dessert for a cookout we had for some family members. I was going to make them today but there is no way I wanted 24 chocolate eclairs sitting in my refrigerator staring at me all weekend. They must have been good, since we ate 20 of them!
The recipe came from MeetaK at Whats for Lunch, Honey? (You can find the recipe there), and Tony Tahhan at Olive Juice. It's from Meeta's favorite sugar daddy Pierre Herme from the cookbook Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme by Dorie Greenspan.
The process involved making a chocolate sauce, and just using 7 Tbs of it in a chocolate glaze. The remaining sauce will be used for an ice cream topping-- Yum! Then I made a chocolate pastry cream (which is like a rich chocolate pudding) and pate a choux which forms the actual eclair base. Cool the eclairs, cut them open, apply the glaze to the tops, fill the bottoms with the pastry cream, squish them together to keep them from toppling over on the plate-- a very messy job--I kept having to lick and then wash my fingers. It's a tough job, but somebody had to do it! :)
They weren't all as pretty as the one I photographed, but they sure tasted good!
